We can’t legislate every political norm and convention. Faced with a determined norm-breaker like Scott Morrison, other solutions are needed.
The immediate outcome of Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue’s advice on Scott Morrison’s multiple ministries will be a change to the publication arrangements for ministerial appointments, with the possibility of a legislated change to that effect, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. An inquiry will also occur examining what Morrison did and how he did it, in a form to be determined.
That all follows Donaghue’s advice that what Morrison did was legal, but the result was “the principles of responsible government are fundamentally undermined”. Morrison, in another of his bizarre defences yesterday, seized on the legal bit and justified his actions by invoking the pandemic. Still, he generously admitted, “some of these decisions will be reflected upon now and lessons learned”.
That’s more than you’d ever get from Donald Trump, admittedly, and perhaps the penny is dropping in Morrison’s mind about just how damaging his actions were — if not to Australian democracy than to his own party and whatever scattered debris remains of his legacy.
Discussion about this post